" It may be doubted whether
elisions and compressions which would be thought in bad taste or even
vulgar now were more abhorrent to the ears of Milton's generation than to
a cultivated Italian would be the hearing Dante read as prose. After all,
what Mr. Masson says may be reduced to the infallible axiom that poetry
should be read as poetry.
Mr. Masson seems to be right in his main principles, but the examples he
quotes make one doubt whether he knows what a verse is. For example, he
thinks it would be a "horror," if in the verse
"That invincible Samson far renowned"
we should lay the stress on the first syllable of _invincible_. It is
hard to see why this should be worse than _conventicle_ or _remonstrance_
or _successor_ or _incompatible_, (the three latter used by the correct
Daniel) or why Mr. Masson should clap an accent on _surface_ merely
because it comes at the end of a verse, and deny it to _invincible_. If
one read the verse just cited with those that go with it, he will find
that the accent _must_ come on the first syllable of _invincible_ or else
the whole passage becomes chaos.[383] Should we refuse to say _obleeged_
with Pope because the fashion has changed? From its apparently greater
freedom in skilful hands, blank-verse gives more scope to sciolistic
theorizing and dogmatism than the rhyming pentameter couplet, but it is
safe to say that no verse is good in the one that would not be good in
the other when handled by a master like Dryden.
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